Medicament Injector Sleeve Mechanism for Needle Retraction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing medicament injectors are complex, costly, and prone to failure due to numerous parts, which complicates their assembly and increases the risk of malfunction, making them expensive and unreliable for patient use.
Innovation Solution
A simplified injector design featuring a low-part-count configuration with an outer and inner sleeve system, where the outer sleeve translates axially relative to the inner sleeve, allowing for efficient medicament delivery with a needle that retracts post-use, reducing the risk of needle-stick injuries and maintaining sterility, and incorporating a biasing member for easy operation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If present injectors use multiple parts to achieve shielding and injection functions, then the shielding function is improved, but the device complexity increases and reliability decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the shielding function and injection function into a single integrated device structure. The outer shell serves both as a protective shield covering the needle and as the injection mechanism housing, eliminating the need for separate shielding components and reducing overall part count while maintaining both functions.
Solution Approach 2:
The outer shell is designed to perform multiple functions simultaneously: it acts as a protective shield, a structural housing, and an injection actuator. This multi-functional design reduces the number of separate components needed, directly addressing the contradiction between providing shielding and maintaining simplicity.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If present injectors use more than twenty-six parts to achieve injection and shielding, then the shielding and injection functions are improved, but the manufacturing cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
By merging multiple functions into fewer components, the patent reduces the total part count from over twenty-six to a simplified configuration. This consolidation directly reduces manufacturing costs through fewer parts to produce, assemble, and quality-check, while maintaining the essential shielding and injection functions.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If present injectors use complex assembly of multiple parts, then the shielding function is improved, but the assembly difficulty increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent integrates the shielding structure with the injection mechanism into a unified design where the outer shell performs both functions. This merging eliminates the need for complex assembly of multiple separate parts, as the integrated structure requires fewer assembly steps and less precise alignment, directly reducing assembly difficulty while maintaining shielding effectiveness.
4Productivity
If present injectors use numerous parts to achieve injection function, then the injection capability is improved, but the reliability decreases
Solution Approach 1:
By consolidating the injection mechanism into a simpler integrated structure with fewer moving parts, the patent reduces potential failure points while maintaining injection capability. The integrated design eliminates interfaces between multiple separate components, reducing opportunities for malfunction and improving overall reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts and eliminates unnecessary intermediate components from the injection mechanism, retaining only the essential elements needed for injection function. This simplification removes potential failure points associated with complex multi-part assemblies while preserving the core injection capability.
Data Source
AI summary
An injector for delivering a medicament includes an outer sleeve, an inner sleeve, and a syringe. The inner sleeve is disposed partially within the outer sleeve. A plunger rod of the syringe is engaged with the outer sleeve in a fixed spatial relationship such that the plunger rod and the outer sleeve translate as a unit. The outer sleeve is configured for axial translation relative to the inner sleeve from a first configuration wherein the inner sleeve extends from the outer sleeve a first distance to a second configuration in which the inner sleeve extends from the outer sleeve a second distance that is less than the first distance. Further, in a third configuration the inner sleeve extends from the outer sleeve a third distance that is greater than the second distance and the inner sleeve is restricted from axially translating with respect to the outer sleeve.